Making everyone happy is impossible. Pissing them off is a piece of cake. I like cake.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

The Perfect Shitstorm.

Amidst all the handwringing and deckchair reorganisation going on on the decks of HM Government in the face of the imminent meltdown, you would hope that the folly of the last decade or two of governance would be dawning on them.

I fear not. Confirmed in the sinecure of ‘the longest period of growth in our history’, bolstered by the echoes of their own mantras, insulated from the forces they have unleashed in society and the economy, powerless to act having signed away their own autonomy they are, in the last analysis, a caste of preening irrelevancies simpering on the precipice of a volcano.

They no longer represent us.

Item: unchecked immigration.By allowing immigration in unprecedented numbers into the country, the population underwent a huge change in terms of size and makeup. The sounds and sights of the streets changed. Cities and towns struggling to find adequate housing and services for an already distended population found themselves dealing with ever greater numbers, many of whom disappeared between gaps in the multifarious agencies created to deal with them (and, yes, even help them). Tensions and suspicions arose - even in places with a long history of immigration. Riots flared.

Item: ‘multiculturalism’No-one outside the lunatic fringes was demanding a return to whites-only homogeniety, but for years a debate was stifled by the knee-jerk, liberal cow’s cud of “that’s racist, mate.” Official business was conducted in 17 languages. The police were told that they were institutionally racist and as a result were forced to genuflect before the Gods of Academia, surrendering their autonomy to a barrage of forms and processes designed to ‘correct’ their behaviour. And while they retreated within their high-tech fortresses, paralysed by strictures, forces from outside sought to wreak vengeance on the largesse of their host country.

A bitter harvest was eventually reaped on the luckless innocents of the underground, catching by surprise a far-flung constellation of leftish commentators who had belaboured the point that expressing a desire for jihad was either a juvenile cultural specificity it was safe to ignore, or maybe something that held a grain of truth – for wasn’t the case that the West was weak, supine to the whims of commerce and greedy capitalism? Terrorism could be our fault - a kind of moral irrigation of the soul.

And while, safe in their enclaves of intellectualism, they wrung their hands, still the doors remained open, and still these forces were endured first-hand by a population far removed from their rulers by wealth, education and the mad chicaneries of the bureaucracy.

Item: restrictions on housebuildingAs the population swelled, Government pandered to the forces of Nimbyism – the homeowning classes being the most likely to vote – and placed endless restrictions on the development of new homes. Housebuilding fell by 2007 to a level not even sufficient to replace the stock that was being lost to demolition and age.

Item: house pricesThese two vectors of historically high immigration and historically low housebuilding combined to fuel a boom in house prices. Owning a home was an aspiration shared by most people – for what is a man without a dwelling? (There being no visible upswell in the number of people expressing a desire to live the life of a hobo, it is a question worth posing.) And so, by the iron-clad laws of supply and demand, prices soared.

As they soared, so people resorted to their credit cards or equity in their properties to fund their lives. Egged on by a government keen to make homeowners of us all (an impossible task!) new products and options became available - aided at every stage by a Government who wanted us all to feel rich... after all, we deserved 'equality' did we not? Why should a small number of people be the only ones to benefit from prosperity.

Item: taxationSwept to power on the belief that public services were poor due to underfunding, Labour began a campaign of hitherto unforseen largesse in public spending. The ‘windfall’ tax on energy companies of 1997, the sale of 3G licenses in 2000, the selling of Britain’s gold reserves in 1999, all swelled government coffers by the billion.

An avalanche of cash poured into a public services. We we told it was ‘sustainable’, ‘prudent’, it complied with a ‘golden rule’ that ‘entrenched stability’ in the economy… chimaeras all! To the cheers of the Unions, the soft Left, environmentalists, a cabal of left-leaning think tanks, quangoes, pressure groups and media intelligentsia, Government began to raid the public purse to fund yet more spending. Pension fund piggy banks were smashed in the stealth of the night. Taxes on petrol and heating for homes were ratcheted up – ostensibly to fund the fight against climate change, but quickly diverted into dead-end projects to ‘end child poverty’, bring projects like the Olympics to London, introduce ID cards, fund the bottomless maw of the agencies that government itself spawned.

Redistributed? Of course! But not to the poor. The total share of their income lost to tax soared. meanwhile, a gilded generation of government apparatchiks grew fat on the teat of the public purse. Child Support Agency? Fail. British Council? Fail. NHS? Fail. Railtrack? Fail. And still they glided ever higher on the thermal updrafts of our money - their rewards seeming to grow in inverse proportion to the benefits they brought.

Item: transportFresh to power, John Prescott felt able to declare that Labour would have “failed" if car did not decline on 1997 levels. Petrol taxes rose. Congestion charging was introduced. Cameras to track violations of traffic code sprouted along roadsides all over the country. Great humps of tarmac were poured into the middle of residential streets. Chicanes appeared. Fines were automated. Police presence on the highways grew. New ‘Agencies’ appeared to restrict the roads. Enforcement of parking offences was handed over to private companies and incentivised by volume.

Elswhere, the catastrophic decision to separate the running of infrastructure from the provision of services and rolling stock (the result, not co-incidentally, of European legislation) meant that rail services continued to fail – becoming more and more expensive even as more and more people used them.

So the arteries of the country became more clogged. And while the people looked to the roads, still they were relieved of their money and little of it was spent on the roads.

And amidst the ruin that this has wrought, while the roofs and walls of the people are shaken and battered by the chill winds of this incoming storm, the commentariat still tell their mendacious tale of the need for more government and more controls.

We, the people, have been shilled to the highest bidder, bilked of our money, spat on and defamed by the people we elected to represent us. We vote left… we vote right… we don’t vote at all… still the lies and control from the centre spill down on us. The failure is at the top. It is our leaders who have failed us – yet still their spittle falls on us. We are feckless… we drive too much in the wrong sort of cars… we drink too much of the wrong kind of drink in the wrong place… we use too much energy watching too much television… we eat too much of the wrong foods. We are heathen – a boiling mass of unsophisticated peasants incapable of making the ‘right’ judgements for ourselves.

Even when, by all empirical standards, the ‘ruling classes’ have failed in every project, ruined every bright dawn, stamped on every dream. Even when they lie and steal and bow to pressure groups and fund their own lavish lifestyle at our expense. Even as they propose more controls, more targets, more metrics, more checks and balances more cameras, more technology. Even as they do all this and more, still it is you who are found wanting in their eyes.

Until they hang at the gibbet for the sport of crows, we shall have no peace with them.

I am distrait. I have been composing for over 3 months a post entitled "The grand theory of everything" which encompasses much of what you have said and some more. Do I bother finishing it or just link to yours now? Thanks!

The real horrible thing here is that Brown, probably aware that his chances of winning a general election are about the same as Cherie Blair passing through the eye of a needle, has two years in which to further fuck up the country. Maybe if he can sufficiently destroy everything he can establish his socialist utopia in the ruins? Maybe that was the aim anyway.

They have been to the Mugabie University of Politics, and graduated with honours, got that first hand from Mr.Ssamako Britishmon. Straight up, Mr. Ssamako, who has one of them big farms, he is a farmer you know, was on the phone just yesterday asking me to send him some food aid. He said Gordon was well ready to show Robert that he can fuck up a country better than him.

Great blog... even if it is a little gentle on the perpertrators of the greatest shambles of a Government screw up ever.

But the madness can never end. It isn't just that every scheme, every plan, every lie, every distortion, every self-congratulating masturbatory twitch over the last ten years has failed... but that our dear leaders have yet more plans for more control, more adjustment, more laws, more taxes...

This is the nightmare. The wankers at the top cannot stop and cannot conceive of ever stopping. Every cabinet "reshuffle" brings some fresh faced loon to the top of the pile with their own new, exciting and useless plans for us all.

Failure is rewarded and replaced with failings.

This is the nightmare novelists like Orwell once warned us about, and we went right ahead in 1997 and voted for this insanity. Aaargh!

Though 'Carpsio' is right to put immigration and multiculturalism at the top of the list his actual criticism of them consists of inaccurate examinations of said doctrines and (inevitably) no suggestion of how they should be changed.

Take for instance the "bitter harvest" of 7/7. You are wrong to say that multiculturalism lead to 7/7. You have your facts very wrong Carpsio.

Do you know that Mohammed Siddique Khan lived a normal, university educated, "moderate Muslim" (you are likely to be a big believer in "Moderate Islam"), "integrated" life up until 7/7?

Do you know that "Multiculturalism" is perfectly consistent with Liberalism in general: Do what thou wilt?

Are you aware that you, Carpsio, fully subscribe to liberalism without taxes ("Libertarianism")?

Then you should know that to not be 'multiculturalist' is to force assimilation: perhaps by prohibiting men like Mohammed Siddique Khan from mentoring new immigrants from Asia? Perhaps by busing school children around cities to ensure that all state schools have an even ethnic mix as recommended by the disgraced Ray Honeyford?

Do you also know that Jihad is not multiculturalism, nor is it caused by a failure of multiculturalism? Do you know that the Muslim bigot you linked to at CiF also denied 7/7 by calling Jihadism a creation of the incompetence of Tony Blair?

Given that it is is illiberal to force assimilation perhaps we should run a discriminatory immigration policy: one that effectively amounts to whites only. Given the alternatives of Islamification, ethnic squabbling, and the break down of "Community Cohesion", and Balkanisation, is a discriminatory immigration policy really lunacy?

Do you know that by being a liberal you support unlimited movement of labour and capital?

Carpsio, you have--nothing-- with which to oppose the disastrous phenomenon of immigration and multiculturalism.. Except the narcissistic defence of the conspiratorial "they" in academia whose liberal ideas and outlook you effectively share anyway.

Excellent posting. So true!! They were given Maggies legacy and have lived off the back of it for 10 years. Thety didn't build on it though, they trashed it by actually reverting to the socialist ideology that Bliar was trying to dump. Now the country is in a mess, everyone is hurting because of the McBroon tax everything policy and the bastards don't care. They are running up ruinouis debts that will beggar us, our chilodren through to our great great grandchildren. They are truly evil.

Actually, multiculturalism isn't just "do what thou wilt" - which, as you point out, is perfectly in sync with libertarianism.

The problem is that it is an official creed that bolsters 'communities' against the common law of the land. You needn't speak English, for we will translate everything for you. Feel free to force marriages for we recognise that it is your 'culture'. Preach violence against the West and we will ignore it because it is your cultural rhetoric.

That is the message delivered by the Government, and that is why we have reaped an inevitable harvest. As a Libertarian I believe that no-one should be forced to believe or act in any particular way. However, that does not preclude the rule of law - and one law for all inhabitants of this island. That law must not be inhibited by a fear of treading on cultural toes.

Someone would be fine to hold a belief that murder for religious reasons is justified. If they acted on that belief, the law supercedes that belief. It's that simple.

You are creating a false trope by conflating 'libertarianism' with 'anarchy', or suggesting that there is a hypocrisy at the heart of what we are saying.

In fact, I do believe, passionately, in the free movement of goods, people and capital across borders. The current situation however is distorted by a welfare state and bolstered by official multiculturalism that says: "anyone can come here for any reason and, regardless of what they contribute, will be guaranteed a certain standard of living, and possibly special protection from the law."

So the problem is not one of immigration or assimilation - it is one of Governments acting against the interests and will of the people by perpetuating this system.

I await your response with baited breath. If it is anything to do with "let's get rid of the darkies" (which I read as the subtext of your post) then, well, good luck with that.

"As a Libertarian I believe that no-one should be forced to believe or act in any particular way."

"Preach violence against the West and we will ignore it because it is your cultural rhetoric."

"one law for all inhabitants of this island"

--

"I do believe, passionately, in the free movement of goods, people and capital across borders."

"multiculturalism that says: "anyone can come here for any reason"

--

"Governments acting against the interests and will of the people by perpetuating this system"

"I do believe, passionately, in the free movement of goods, people and capital across borders."

--

No, this problem hasn't been exacerbated by multi-culturalism; certain people would still believe in Sharia law and Jihad regardless of welfare and cultural deference.

"one law for all inhabitants of this island"

Don't bother saying that the only problem with Sharia is the state i.e. if there were no state (for libertarian reasons) there would be no problem with Sharia law. You yourself have already advocated the use of force (effectively cultural imperialism) against certain cultural tendancies: "one law". That alone will earn you the Ray Honeyford treatment ("Ra-Cist, Ra-Cist"). Law requires a powerful, sovereign state. A state with a monopoly of force, which requires a ban on guns, especially with Mohammedans around. A state that libertarianism repudiates when followed with faithful dogmatism, which means the absence of order--anarchy--as you yourself have put it. As Ayn Rand put it.

But if you want a politics of force, then you are an extremely foolish man. If you want to be battling Muslim seperatists years from now (oweing to your insane advocation of totally open borders), than continue advocating a politics of force ("one law"). I advocate of politics of reason before force. Islam is bad news--though the reasons are of course too long to go in to here--and we must discriminate against Muslims before they enter the country. That way we will never have to fight the conflict that enforcing the "one-law" requires.

May I remind you that Mohammed Siddique Khan lived a 'moderate' life up until 7/7/05? At no point in his life did he desire "special protection from the law". Think about it.

"there is a hypocrisy at the heart of what we are saying."

No, I never called you a hypocrite, which means liar/actor. That you used the word "hypocrite" tells me how sloppy and demogogic your use of language is: though in common parlance 'hypocrite' simply means saying one thing whilst doing a thing prohibited by what is said i.e. a liar and an actor. I actually say there is an irreconciliable tension between your opposition to the damaging forces at work in Britain today and the powerlessness of your own ideas to stop them, moreover, they actually cause the problem in the first place, and you can't connect these two phenomena because it would call into question the veracity of liberalism in general.

No, I have a different idea of what you are. You're not a libertarian, you're a democrat, and being a democrat you are a crowdist and a demogogue. A democrat is compelled to be a demagogue to get the vote (1933..). You believe in things that gain crowd approval. You like "the rights of the individual", because a crowd of people can always agree on the lowest common denominator and not make any demands on each other, and enjoy the drunken state of "tensionlessness". Certainly you make no demands on yourselves seeing as though libertarianism is an essentially negative model of a political order believed by people who--having no transcendant beliefs--settle for a comfortable dubiety and sweary juvenile jokes. You are a little more informed than the man in the street as you reject Socialism (as "statism"). You do allow yourself a tipple of patriotism (also a crowdist phenomenon) though qualified with libertarianism so as not to be a nasty authoritarian racist and thus provoking crowd disapproval. Being a rock musican, and therefore a consumer and purveyor of crass, degrading, music or at least a fan of rock music, is comensurate with this entire disposition of yours.

You are certainly an unreasoning, irrational, artless demagogue:

"As a Libertarian I believe that no-one should be forced to believe or act in any particular way."

So if the people and individuals shouldn't behave in a particular way--such as observing the property rights and marriage freedom of the individual: on pain of imprisonment under the "one-law" of the land--maybe they should actually behave in a universal, as opposed to a particular, way? No of course not. You may as well say: "I value diversity. I value tolerance." Libertarianism effectively amounts to the same thing. That you wrote a sentence as ridiculous as the above, though superficially seductive, underlines my point: You're a demagogue who commands language in a lazy, sloppy manner to provoke the right kind of affect, not to communicate meaning. As a (probable) rock musician you should know much about the communication of entertaining and contradictory slogans over guitar chords.

"You gotta be

who you be

if you're coming with me"

Oasis lyrics are a prime example of rock lyrics. Being logical contradictions they act like mantras; they arrest thought and a produce a blissful dissociated state. Holidays from reality, in the anonymous darkness of the sweaty crowd. That's the way of the democrat. Being permissive, and making dereliction of judgement a virtue ("no one should be forced to act..") you end up practising and encouraging decadent criminal behaviour, such as music, demagogy, and Mohammedanism, whilst simultaneously relying on a forceful rule of law to create order, an order that will be undermined by the presence of voters who don't believe in liberalism i.e. Mohammedans. Libertarianism, like all liberalism, is self-defeating. Given the circumstances of todays world, it is insane.

Great post - for the sport of crows is a superb turn of phrase. We are in danger of losing our last spot of green space in the small town where i live to new Wimpey shitboxes. Instead I would love to see the old land used for great of British sport of public execution and hanging on the garret for our political 'elite.'

Walking the dog past rows of fucking shit box houses in place of 8 acres of green fields does not appeal, walking said mutt past swinging politicians and EU whores of all the three main parties, whilst the crows peck out their eyes most definitely does!

Apart from that thought, I am a very peaceful, tax paying family man who (in commonm with everyone I speak to) has had enough with the cunts who micromanage every aspect of what used to be called a 'free society.'

Horse - if I can just express your argument a wee bit more pithily: "you are a Libertarian but you believe in the rule of law - therefore their is a contradiction at the heart of what you say."

No. This is what happens when clever, erudite people try to sew the world up into an intellectual bag of their own devising.

We have two traditions of law. Firstly, we have the common law - which has been accrued over many centuries by precedent to establish what bounds our behaviour. Secondly, we have criminal law - which are statutes handed down by the executive which create criminal offences for certain actions.

The common law is considerably more libertarian a device than criminal law. For example, nothing in common law precluded the use of drugs such as heroin. It only became a criminal matter when the state decided it was so in 1971.

I don't believe that anyone here is advocating a lawless, "every man for himself" society. We are arguing that the state and its agents encroach too much on personal liberty. We need less criminal law - which is subject to momentary fits of politically-inspired moralising - and a return to the primacy of common law: anything is allowed, but anyone can challenge whether it should be permissable in the courts. Through the establishment of precedent we edge closer to a law that reflects most closely the needs and concerns of the people.

It is not a perfect system. But then anyone who claims to have one is a fool or a liar.

The problem we have with the state is precisely this. There are lots of clever, erudite people who can make a rational argument in favour of almost anything (including the forcible removal of 'Mohammedans' from the country) and unfortunately, who have the power to actually enact such madnesses.

Ideas that read well and are philosophically watertight are then unleashed on us all where the actual state of the world plays merry hell with them. Official Multiculturalism sounds so sane and reasonable - no logical person would disapprove of it. Yet somehow, in the field it has a slew of horrific unintended consequences.

Taken on its own terms of reference it is perfectly sane and logical - much like your clever reduction of the 'Mohammedan Problem' and your confidence in labelling me 'insane' for not toeing your line.

That makes for neither good law, nor good society.

And yes, this is a primarily demagogic medium - does it look or sound like a policy forum? Am I writing a white paper here? I want to annoy some of the cunts running my life, and persuade a few more people that less will always be more in terms of government. If that makes you want to neatly drop me in a bin marked "Oasis fan" then that's up to you.